


dawn

by Rhavia



Series: featherbed [5]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Post battle of Winterfell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-24
Updated: 2019-04-24
Packaged: 2020-01-31 07:43:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18586819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhavia/pseuds/Rhavia
Summary: He snorts out a breath, discarding the scrap of linen he was using to clean the two of them, and leans forward to press his forehead to hers. “I’ll have you any way you’ll let me,” he says. He’s damn lucky enough to have shared last night with her, let alone this moment, but it’s the truth. If she came to him once more or a thousand times more, he would have her. He gazes down at her, knowing she can read his expression all too well, but it doesn’t seem to break her like it did last night.A continuation ofafter. Renamed from 'later'.





	dawn

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't mean to write this one either

Gendry wants to know where her scars came from. Not the ones from the battle, those they share, but the ones he saw by candlelight the night before and that curve around her waist now in the dim light of dawn. He can’t imagine she had them when he was taken by the Red Woman. She has changed, grown, despite being as fiery and unyielding as ever. He’s uncertain how well he even knows her now, but she still appears to trust him as she did years ago. He had wanted to ask last night, about her scars, but she would have silenced him. That wasn’t a time for words. Perhaps now was.  
  
“Is this how you wanted me last night?” Arya asks from where she is sat beneath him, ankles still hooked loosely around the back of his legs.  
  
He snorts out a breath, discarding the scrap of linen he was using to clean the two of them, and leans forward to press his forehead to hers. “I’ll have you any way you’ll let me,” he says. He’s damn lucky enough to have shared last night with her, let alone this moment, but it’s the truth. If she came to him once more or a thousand times more, he would have her. He gazes down at her, knowing she can read his expression all too well, but it doesn’t seem to break her like it did last night.  
  
“Good,” she says. She slides her hand up from his chest to his neck and guides him down to meet her lips. It is the softest of all the kisses they have shared, and yet it hits him the hardest. This isn’t fuelled by lust, nor the relief they felt in knowing the other was alive, but more – and he swallows thickly when she parts from him. She is Arya Stark, a Lady of Winterfell, and he is the bastard from Flea Bottom who has bedded her not once but twice now. She looks to him, then, almost as if reading his thoughts to drive the point home. “I want you in my bed tonight. And every other night after.”  
  
Seven hells, he’s fucked.  
  
Gendry was once one of the few who knew she was alive, when she was still scrawny, disguised as a boy with a cropped mop of hair. He had heard the rumours that echoed through King’s Landing upon his return from Dragonstone – how the only Stark’s that remained were her prisoner sister and bastard brother. He had assumed her dead, alongside her brother Robb, and hadn’t much dwelled upon the whispers of the Stark girl in hiding. He hadn’t wanted to think of the girl he had known being gone. She was nothing like that girl now. Still slight, but a storm; her hair long enough for him to play with between his fingers. She has blossomed into a woman, a strong woman, and how he would love to accept her offer.  
  
He opens his mouth to protest but she speaks first. “You called me your lady.” She’s right. It hadn’t been but a half hour and he still meant it, but he was no lord. His Baratheon blood had meant nothing then and it meant nothing now. He was lowborn and he could serve her any way that she wished but he could not be what she wanted. He had already taken from her that which he had no right to, which he did not deserve; and that would reflect on her, not him. She was a lady.  
  
“You can’t be, not like that—”  
  
“Are you afraid?” she cuts, the frost in her voice more bitter than the snow outside. Yes, he is. Her brother is a King and he has defiled his sister. She may not see it that way but plenty will.  
  
“Arya… you may not want to be, but you _are_ a lady.” She’s standing now, set apart from him but sizing him up. When she opens her mouth to speak, he shushes her with a hard look; she’s as stubborn as ever but he can match it, and he’s not sure she can quite see the consequences of their actions. The pitch of his voice drops. “Last night… we expected to die.” He knits his brows together, eyes running the length of the scars on her belly – some still raw from only hours ago, many more traced with white lines. “This morning we were too relieved to care.” He raises his gaze to hers and her eyes are hard; he should have expected that, really. He was just as much a part of this as her and now he is pulling away. He can see the fire brewing in her and it angers him, too, because he’s more afraid for her than he is for himself. “I shouldn’t have—”  
  
“Do you think that matters now?” Arya presses, but it’s not as cold this time. It’s almost exasperated, and the mask she has been wearing since first visiting him in the forge, that even last night she wore loosely, starts to chip away. “I know death. I have seen it, I’ve been it. But we just fought the dead, a whole damn army of them, and yet we’re _alive_. Doesn’t that make you question the rules?”  
  
It had. Since his trip beyond the wall Gendry had questioned the game the highborn had played to sit atop a seat of swords. The Iron Throne wasn’t anything special; he had forged far more in the last few weeks alone, dragonglass far more powerful than iron against the true enemy of them all. He had seen the dead walking, dragons long-thought to be extinct. He takes a breath. There is never any winning with this girl – this _woman_. “Your brother…”  
  
“You would defer to my brother?” He can almost hear the laugh in her voice, and it irks him. Of course he should.  
  
He steps forward where she had taken a step back in that last moment, leaving little between them. “He’s King in the North, isn’t he?” he says, heated. “At least to everyone up here?” Let alone her brother, who of course he would defer to in the absence of her father. _Gods_ , this shouldn’t even be a discussion.  
  
Gendry can see her chest rise and fall as she breathes deeply, eyes never wavering from his. “He’s also a bastard.” That stops him for a beat, and Arya steams on ahead, “I don’t care for their rules. I care for you.” It is the closest to an admission of what there is between them that she has come. At least verbally – the invitation to her bed still both enthrals and terrifies him, and while he’s quite sure he understood the implications, this leaves no room for debate.  
  
He is also incredibly aware of how close she is to him; how hot her skin is and how cold it is outside. He can’t say he’s surprised when she kisses him. She’s merciless, too, not taking no for an answer. He wants her too much to oppose even though he knows he should. In the brief moment between the first and second kiss, he considers: the dead were walking not moments ago, burnt down by dragons, and a bastard is King. Maybe she can be his family.  
  
They part minutes later and he doesn’t pick up the argument where he left off. She smiles, and he knows she’s gloating at having won.  
  
“What will you tell your brother?” he says, long after he has followed her lead and begun packing layers of clothing back on, drenched from the battle but at least warm.  
  
Her smile lingers. “That he is a bastard who fucked a Queen for love. This isn’t any different, and hardly any worse.”


End file.
